This study analyses the intimate relationship between foreign policy and nation-state building in Algeria since independence. It assumes that foreign policy stands as a part and parcel of the process of building a state and cementing national feelings in a society that emerged through a long period of colonisation and a violent struggle for liberation. This thesis is sub-divided into six chapters to highlight the link between foreign policy and the nation-state building process: Chapter One underlines the conceptions of the Algerian ideologists with regard to affirming the existence of an Algerian nation and a state well before French colonisation. It also attempts to locate the political forces that emerged as nation-builders and ascertain their achievements. In chapter Two, the decision-making process is scrutinized through the study of the main actors and institutions forming the foreign community and the interference in formulating and conducting the country's foreign policy. Sovereignty, as one of the basic foundations of a nation-state unit, constitutes the theme of the third Chapter and is analysed through the efforts of the Algerian leaders to assert their country's sovereignty vis-a-vis its former metropole, France. Chapter Four relates the state’s security and territorial integrity to the regional context, notably to Algeria's relations with her neighbours which have been marked by ideological differences and territorial disputes. Chapter Five deals with the efforts of Algeria to establish her identity on radical and technocratic perceptions of Arabo-Islamism at home and on a deep attachment to the policy of non-alignment abroad. Finally, Chapter Six focuses on the link between foreign policy and national economic development as it has been conceived by the state's technocracy and assesses the successes and failures of the economic policy as well as Algeria's role in North-South debates.